Ireland grew up. I’m immensely proud of what my country has achieved in so few years. We’ve transferred ourselves from an impoverished theocracy to a thriving secular and increasingly liberal European peer.

Many people my age (and younger) who left Ireland during the Great Recession are now returning and they being so much with them.

Many people of my generation were educated in schools dominated by the Catholic Church. There was no better way to show these kids the reasons why the church has no place in running our society and I’m happy to see their influence in education weakening every year.

We still have many problems here but they are the problems of a modern country that many other developed nations face. We’ve grown up.